Horror
by aspirer
Summary: This quick one-shot is based on The Book Thief; I tried to emulate Zusak's style and the setting of Nazi Germany. It is about an original character and the boy he loves.


Horror was in most places, always masked in its bastardisation of 'progress'. It was in the tinkle of Aryan teeth, forced from the Aryan gums by someone else's Aryan boot. It was in the steady thump of blood in Aryan ears as they stared into bright blue eyes, practically a dancing mirror of their own. It was in the shower of blood splashed from spilt lips onto a glistening pavement. A swastika blinks happily from a uniform, smiling brighter with every pulse of the expelling heart.

It was in the words of the Fuehrer, weaving through minds and pushing their way into flickering heartbeats, a renewed, tainted, rotting zest for life resulting. It was in the ears of the persecuted, sitting by a radio, spat on in the street, packed neatly into train carts and emptied into chambers at the point of no return. It was in the eyes of the rebels, smuggling people to safety (people. PEOPLE. Who needed smuggling.)

It was in the head of the boy lying in the middle of the street, Nazi boots raining down on him from his former classmates. The boy with broken teeth, a split lip and a throat filling with his own fluid. He looked away from the swastika, its teeth gleaming now, and he closed his eyes. His big, pale blue Aryan eyes. The ones his mother had said would keep him safe. 'You can't tell anyone. And you can't act like you have a secret. Just uncover your hair and keep your eyes clear.' And she had kissed his sun-coloured head and apologised that it had to be this way.

The boy lay silently, concentrating on every place the horror couldn't reach. He waded through his memories, turning his face from those that made him afraid, from those that made him despair, and from those that reminded him of being wrong. A knuckled blow met the side of his face and he inhaled it, embraced what they couldn't destroy for him. His first kiss. A shiny memory, breathing of humour and clumsiness and absolutely platonic love. His best friend had smiled and kissed him just to 'check'. To check there was no way he felt anything for her. He had grabbed her face afterwards and told her shakily that there was no way he could be straight. She was the prettiest, most perfect girl he knew and he felt no romantic attraction to her whatsoever, and if there was no spark for her…well, what other girl had a scrap of hope? She hugged him tight and told him she'd thought as much.

A smile played across the boy's face as he rolled over on the pavement. The metallic taste of blood and boot was sharp on his tongue and his ears registered a roar of outrage. They pulled him up by his yellow hair and the boy thought vaguely that they probably wouldn't stop until they killed him. What a relief that would be. His body was buzzing, every inch of him tingling like his nerves were in flames.

'Steh auf!' A hand cuffed him over the face and the blood rushed once more to his head. He looked into the livid face of a boy a few years older than him. Just finished school and in charge of a Hitler Youth division? He couldn't recall his name…Helmut? Heinrich? Ah, what did it matter? He grinned openly through the hole of scarlet in his face. Helmu…whatshisface…looked like he had swallowed arsenic and lifted the butt of his rifle to smack him with it.

The boy spat out a tooth and marvelled at the sight of a lanky teenager holding a deadly weapon. He may as well live up to the stereotype and misuse it. The boy raised his arms, annoyed that they trembled. He didn't want them to think he was frightened, when in actual fact he was just tired. He swayed forward on one foot and presented his chest, as if to say 'What are you waiting for, coward?' He watched the barrel of the gun, willing it toward him.

They had found him under the stairs of the school oval, entwined with another, hiding in virtual silence. He hated what he had done to his mother, broken his promise to lie low and not draw attention to himself. But he couldn't stop. His second kiss had been with a boy. A quiet boy with hair of felt and skinny wrists that were locked around him as they listened. His kisses made the blood rush to his head as well. And to his fingertips, and between his legs. And they found every dark corner, every hidden cupboard and every deserted riverbank to kiss again. And again. High on the scent of life and addicted to one another. But, as with all drugs, people eventually find out.

His shy, slender boy with felt hair had been taken first, a scream clawing its way out of his throat and cavorting around, puncturing the eardrums and hearts of all who heard it. And with that sound, louder then he had ever been, the horror flooded back with a vengeance. And now our yellow-headed boy stood on a street. His arms were stretched out and a bloody smile ran backwards and forwards across his face as he thought of pleasant, more important things. Peers in snarling uniforms surrounded him; a rifle glinted at his fluttering pulse. In his mind, he watched his mother, his pretty-faced best friend, and the boy he loved. If they could see him now, ready to be happier than he'd ever been.


End file.
